The Art of Grant Writing

I'm reviewing a new grant-writing book, entitled Good to Great Grant Writing: Secrets to Success by Dr. Julie Cwikla. The book is full of little nuggets of good advice on writing your grant. In the first section, Cwikla looks at what she considers the artistic components of good grant writing, including the following:

Picture your reviewer: I once asked a seasoned PI and reviewer, "What do reviewers really want?" He replied, "They don't want to be reading your grant!" His response was sardonic, of course, but the truth of the matter is that reviewers are reading your grant proposal as volunteers on top of all their other work and family responsibilities. With this in mind, you cannot make your proposal too simple or too easy-to-read.

Start with the punchline: Probably the most unique thing about good grant-writing, as opposed to other forms of writing, is you need to make your point fast. You need to both hook your reader with a problem statement and quickly show what your proposed project is about (connecting them both). Given that we know the reviewer is likely not excited to review your grant and is doing it on top of everything else, they have a low tolerance for extraneous details. They want to know what you're doing and why it's important right away...so tell them in the opening sentences!

Describe the forest and then the trees: Expanding on the previous point, once you've gotten straight to the punchline of your project, back up and give your reviewer a sense of the context, or the forest in this metaphor. What has previous research found? Where is the field at in this area? Then once you've described the forest, describe the individual trees. It's not enough to offer reviewers a compelling vision of your work, you must offer enough details on your project to instill confidence in your reviewers that you can get it done.

Scrap the jargon: You know I've said it before, but this time Dr. Cwikla says it again: Take out the jargon from your proposal. Jargon is the technical terminology in your discipline that people outside of your immediate area of expertise don't understand. Like I said earlier, you can't make your proposal too simple, so take out all the jargon you possibly can. If there are one or two words or phrases you simply must have, be sure to define them and use them consistently!

Building off of last week's blog, approaching your grant proposal as an art can allow you to build a compelling and well-structured case that convinces your weary reviewers to recommend funding.

Resources:
The Art of Writing Proposals - Przeworkski and Salomon
The Art of Proposal Writing: Proposals as a Genre - Ruhleder